Tucson Military Recruiters Ran Cocaine

Back in 2002 there was an FBI sting mission called Operation Lively Green. There are some real additional questions that need to be asked given the sentencing imposed below. Here is a condition that goes unknown or forgotten.

A small number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. will have an opportunity to join the military for the first time in decades under a new Department of Defense policy unveiled Thursday.

The new rules will expand an existing program allowing recruiters to target foreign nationals with high-demand skills, mostly rare foreign language expertise or specialized health care training.

For the first time, the program — known as Military Accessions in the National Interest, or MAVNI — will be open to immigrants without a proper visa if they came to the U.S. with their parents before age 16. More specifically, they must be approved under a 2012 Obama administration policy known as Deferred Action for Child Arrivals, or DACA.

The new Pentagon policy may be the first phase of a broader government-wide effort to ease pressure on immigrants and create new paths to citizenship. President Barack Obama, frustrated with the failure of Congress to pass any substantial immigration reform, has vowed to aggressively use his presidential authority to change the way immigration policies are carried out.

The Pentagon program is capped at 1,500 recruits per year. Officials say it’s unclear how many of those might be unlawful DACA status immigrants as opposed to others who are also eligible for military service under MAVNI, including those with legal, nonpermanent visas such as students or tourists.

WASHINGTON—A former member of the Arizona Army National Guard was sentenced today to 52 months in prison for his role in a scheme to accept bribes from purported drug traffickers in exchange for using his military position to protect shipments of cocaine during transportation, announced Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Raul Portillo, 42, of Phoenix, Arizona, pleaded guilty on Nov. 21, 2014, to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and interfere with commerce by attempted extortion. U.S. District Judge James A. Soto of the District of Arizona imposed the sentence.

According to admissions made in connection with his guilty plea, Portillo, a sergeant in the Arizona Army National Guard, conspired with others from the Arizona Army National Guard to accept cash bribes to protect narcotics traffickers who were purportedly transporting and distributing cocaine from Arizona to other locations in the southwestern United States. Unbeknownst to Portillo and the other co-conspirators, however, the supposed narcotics traffickers were actually undercover FBI agents.

Specifically, Portillo admitted that he wore his official uniform, carried official forms of identification, used official vehicles and used his official authority, where necessary, to prevent police stops and searches as he drove cocaine shipments through checkpoints manned by the U.S. Border Patrol, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and Nevada law enforcement officers. Portillo admitted that he took bribe payments totaling $12,000 for transporting cocaine on two separate occasions. Portillo also admitted that he accepted a $2,000 cash payment in exchange for recruiting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement inspector into the conspiracy.

Although Portillo was identified by the FBI as a suspect, he mysteriously was never charged and he allegedly fled to Mexico. “In the case of Portillo, as well as other soldiers and sailors involved in criminal enterprises, the Defense Department and law enforcement agencies appear to be complicit in covering up the crime and misconduct cases involving enlisted ‘undocumented immigrants,'” said former NYPD police officer Iris Aquino. “If they’re undocumented, how do you know they’re not criminals or terrorists signing up to serve in the U.S. military?” she asked.

*** Hatip B

Once the November elections were over, President Barack Obama’s program appeared to be replacing American citizens, who are being terminated from their military units with illegal aliens in all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, and the Pentagon is once again seeking to attract so-called undocumented recruits in the next several weeks, according to Military Times. Yet, neither the White House nor the Justice Department will acknowledge how many of the up to 58 National Guard troops arrested are immigrants.

According to his confession, Portillo admitted that he wore his official uniform, carried official forms of identification and weapons, used official military vehicles, in addition to using his official authority to bypass police stops and searches. He also drove through law enforcement checkpoints manned by agents from U.S. Border Patrol, officers from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and Nevada law enforcement officers.

Portillo also confessed to taking payments totaling $12,000 for his transport and protection services for two large cocaine shipments. Portillo also shocked those hearing his allocution when he told the sentencing judge that he was paid a bonus of $2,000 by a Mexican drug gang for his success in recruiting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement inspector. To date, 58 defendants have been convicted and sentenced for charges stemming from this investigation and it’s believed they will be more arrests and convictions.

Kamala Harris, Enjoined in Lawsuit

SACRAMENTO — A Virginia-based conservative group filed a federal First Amendment lawsuit this week accusing California Attorney General Kamala Harris of engaging in the kind of activity that was the subject of the recent scandal involving the Internal Revenue Service. Are state officials trying to chill the speech of conservative nonprofits?

“Not only did IRS employees improperly target groups based on politics, but they also improperly demanded a host of details about the groups’ activities, according to a report on the abuses by a Treasury Department inspector general,” according to a Washington Post report about the federal scandal. The IRS even demanded information about some of these groups’ smallest donors.

Now the Americans for Prosperity Foundation is saying the state of California is improperly demanding information about its donors – and is threatening unusually harsh penalties if the group doesn’t comply. One other conservative group has filed a separate lawsuit against the attorney general, which is now in the Ninth Circuit.

**** Now comes the court’s decision on her collusion.

Court enjoins California AG Kamala Harris on First Amendment grounds

Stopping acts statutorily related to some of Lois Lerner’s abuse of First Amendment rights of nonprofit organizations, a federal judge has enjoined California attorney general and Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate Kamala Harris from obtaining donor records of 501(c)(4) organizations.

Without express state statutory authority, and allegedly in violation of federal law protecting the confidentiality of donors listed in Schedule B, Ms. Harris demanded that organizations that register with her office under California’s charitable solicitation law disclose their largest donors.  She threatened fines against those who did not comply with her lawless, ultra vires demands.

Most states have charitable solicitation statutes requiring nonprofit organizations to pay fees and obtain a license before asking the public for contributions.  These state statutes typically require nonprofits to file their tax return, IRS Form 990, as part of their annual licensing application, but allow Schedule B listing top donors to be redacted.

The Supreme Court has acknowledged that states may require registration of nonprofits before solicitation of contributions so long as their laws do not violate the First Amendment.  The February 17 injunction against Harris noted that she threatened to suspend the solicitation license of plaintiff Americans for Prosperity unless it disclosed its largest donors.  The district court found that she could not assure that donor records would be kept confidential under her policies, which are not based in any concrete state law, and that would have a chilling effect on First Amendment rights.

AFP presented evidence that its donors, which include the Koch brothers, have received threats.  The court found that AFP raised “serious questions going to the merits” of the larger case, which was sufficient for the injunction.

Federal law requires that donor information on IRS Form 990 Schedule B be kept confidential, with both civil and criminal penalties for disclosure by government officials.  Last year the IRS was fined $50,000 for unlawfully leaking the names of donors to the National Organization for Marriage.

Judicial Watch uncovered e-mails linking Lois Lerner to the IRS’s inappropriately collecting donor names of conservative organizations filing for tax-exempt status.  E-mails also indicate that Ms. Lerner unlawfully disclosed confidential tax information of Tea Party applicants to the Federal Election Commission.  She was eventually referred for criminal prosecution by the House Ways and Means Committee for, among other things, “exposing, and [potentially disclosing], confidential taxpayer information, in apparent violation of Internal Revenue Code section 6103 by using her personal email to conduct official business.”

Ms. Harris, who has been repeatedly described as the “female Barack Obama,” is running to fill the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Barbara Boxer.  She has taken the side of supporting warrantless searches of cell phones, but a unanimous Supreme Court ruled in Riley v. California that the government needs a warrant.

 

 

 

 

Palestinian authorities to blame for terror attacks

NEW YORK (AP) — The Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority were the catalysts for a series of terrorist attacks in the early 2000s in Israel that killed or wounded several Americans, a U.S. jury found Monday at a high-stakes civil trial.

In finding the Palestinian authorities liable in the attacks, jurors awarded the victims $218.5 million in damages for the bloodshed. The U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act could allow for that to be tripled.

The case in Manhattan and another in Brooklyn have been viewed as the most notable attempts by American victims of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to use U.S. courts to seek damages that could reach into the billions of dollars.

The PLO and Palestinian Authority had no immediate comment. None of the victims was in the courtroom Monday for the verdict.

In closing arguments, plaintiff attorney Kent Yalowitz had urged the Manhattan jury to order the PLO and Palestinian Authority to pay $350 million for providing material support to terrorists involved in six bombings and shootings from 2002 to 2004.

No amount could make up for the human toll, he said. “But if the only thing you can give them is money, then money has to stand in as compensation for the unspeakable loss,” he added.

Defense attorney Mark Rochon had argued there was no proof Palestinian authorities sanctioned the attacks as alleged in a 2004 lawsuit brought by 10 American families, even though members of their security forces were convicted in Israeli courts on charges they were involved.

“What they did, they did for their own reasons … not the Palestinian Authority’s,” he said in federal court in Manhattan.

The suit against the PLO and Palestinian Authority and the other against the Jordan-based Arab Bank had languished for years as the defendants challenged the American courts’ jurisdiction. Recent rulings found that they should go forward under the Anti-Terrorism Act, a more than 2-decade-old law that allows victims of U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations to seek compensation for pain and suffering, loss of earnings and other hardship.

Jurors heard dramatic testimony from family members of people killed in the attacks and survivors who never fully recovered. One, Rena Sokolov, described how a family vacation to Israel in 2002 turned to tragedy with a bomb blast outside a Jerusalem shoe store.

The Long Island woman testified that she felt like she “was in a washing machine,” and blood flowed so quickly from a broken leg she thought she would die.

“I looked to my right and saw a severed head of a woman about 3 feet from me,” she said.

The plaintiffs also relied on internal records showing the Palestinian Authority continued to pay the salaries of employees who were put behind bars in terror cases and paid benefits to families of suicide bombers and gunmen who died committing the attacks.

“Where are the documents punishing employees for killing people?” Yalowitz asked. “We don’t have anything like that in this case. … They didn’t roll that way.”

He also put up a photo of Yasser Arafat on a video screen, telling the jury that the Palestinian leader had approved martyrdom payments and incited the violence with anti-Israeli propaganda.

“The big dog was Yasser Arafat,” he said. “Yasser Arafat was in charge.”

Rochon argued that it was illogical to conclude that payments made after the attacks motivated the attackers in the first place.

“You know a lot about prisoner payments and martyr payments,” he said. “Do you have any evidence that they caused these attacks? No.”

Last year, a Brooklyn jury decided that Arab Bank should be held responsible for a wave of Hamas-orchestrated suicide bombings that left Americans dead or wounded based on claims the financial institution knowingly did business with the terror group.

A separate phase of the Brooklyn trial dealing with damages, set to begin in May, will feature testimony from victims.

***

From the New York Times:

The Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization were found liable on Monday by a jury in Manhattan for their role in knowingly supporting six terrorist attacks in Israel between 2002 and 2004 in which Americans were killed and injured.

The jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan awarded $218.5 million in damages, a number that is automatically tripled to $655.5 million under the special terrorism law under which the case was brought.

The verdict ended a decade-long legal battle to hold the Palestinian organizations responsible for the terrorist acts. And while the decision was a huge victory for the dozens of plaintiffs, it also could serve to strengthen the Israeli claim that the supposedly more moderate Palestinian forces are directly tied to terrorism.

The financial implications of the verdict for the defendants were not immediately clear. The Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, had serious financial troubles even before Israel, as punishment for the Palestinians’ move in December to join the International Criminal Court, began withholding more than $100 million a month in tax revenue it collects on the Palestinians’ behalf.

The verdict came in the seventh week of a civil trial in which the jury had heard emotional testimony from survivors of suicide bombings and other attacks in Jerusalem, in which a total of 33 people were killed and more than 450 were injured.

“Money is oxygen for terrorism,” Kent A. Yalowitz, a lawyer for the families, said in a closing argument on Thursday, noting that the antiterrorism law “hits those who send terrorists where it hurts them most: in the wallet.”

The case was brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows American nationals who are victims of international terrorism to sue in the United States courts. The law was used last September by a Brooklyn jury to find Arab Bank liable for supporting terrorism by Hamas. Damages in that case, filed by about 300 victims of 24 terrorist attacks, are to be decided in a second trial, which has not yet been held.

In the Palestinian case, the plaintiffs included 10 families, comprising about three dozen members, eight of whom had been physically injured in the attacks while the others had been left with deep psychological scars, testimony showed.

The plaintiffs also included the estates of four victims who had been killed in the attacks, which occurred on the street and at a crowded bus stop, inside a bus, and in a cafeteria on the campus of Hebrew University.

“It was a terrible thing to see,” one plaintiff, Robert Coulter Sr., 78, testified as he described watching a Fox TV news report about the cafeteria bombing and realizing his 36-year-old daughter, a New Yorker on a business trip, was one of the victims.

“They brought a body bag out on the TV station, right on it, and went right down to where she was laying and I knew it was a girl, had blond hair,” Mr. Coulter recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, my goodness, that’s Janis.’”

The defense had argued that their clients had nothing to do with the attacks. Mark J. Rochon, a defense lawyer, told the jury on Thursday that he did not want “the bad guys, the killers, the people who did this, to get away while the Palestinian Authority or the P.L.O. pay for something they did not do.”

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the P.L.O.’s executive committee who testified for the defense, told the jury, “We tried to prevent violence from all sides.”

But citing testimony, payroll records and other documents, the plaintiffs showed that many of those involved in the planning and carrying out of the attacks had been employees of the Palestinian Authority, and that the authority had paid salaries to terrorists imprisoned in Israel and made martyr payments to the families of suicide bombers.

Feds on the Move to Counter Judge’s Immigration Stay

Recently, Judge Hanon issued a temporary stay order against the Obama regime to stop the White House DAPA order on immigration. Now the Feds are on the move.

HOUSTON (CN) – The 5th Circuit on Monday will be asked to decide whether the Obama administration’s deferred deportation programs for immigrants who were brought to the United States as children are permissible because of prosecutorial discretion.
The Justice Department on Friday said it will ask the 5th Circuit today to stay an injunction that prevented hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants from applying for amnesty.
Twenty-six Republican-led states sued Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and other top immigration officials late last year, claiming Obama’s executive actions are unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, granted an injunction against the programs last week. Critics claim that the Republican states forum-shopped to sue in Hanen’s court. Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee, was well known as a critic of Obama’s immigration policies.


Hanen did not rule that Obama’s programs are unconstitutional, but that they cannot take effect until legal questions are settled.
The Texas-led plaintiffs claim that because Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) would allow qualifying immigrants to apply for work permits and driver’s licenses, the states will be stuck with the cost of processing them.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services already has the authority to grant undocumented immigrants work permits, Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Greg Palmore said. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and USCIS both are branches of the Department of Homeland Security.
Obama’s programs are simply an element of the process of prosecutorial discretion, which immigration officials use to decide who should be deported, according to Palmore.
“Under the deferred action process, and prosecutorial discretion as a whole, ICE is screening every alien we encounter, including those in custody,” Palmore said Friday.
“Decisions are based on the merits of each case, the factual information provided to the agency and the totality of the circumstances,” Palmore said.
“ICE is focused on smart and effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes the removal of convicted criminal aliens, recent border-crossers and immigration fugitives who have failed to comply with final orders of removal issued by the nation’s immigration courts.”
Palmore said ICE would not discuss how it handles a particular case without the immigrant’s consent, as that information is protected by the Privacy Act.
The American Center for Law & Justice, a Christian conservative law firm based in Washington, D.C., joined 27 Republican congressmen in an amicus brief supporting the states’ lawsuit.
It claims Obama’s amnesty offer goes beyond the powers held by immigration agencies.
“As the judge indicated, there is no express or implied statutory authority to create entire new legal programs that go well beyond individualized discretion or resource-based priority determinations and extend into new, large-scale entitlements that actually contradict Congress’s expressed intent,” the firm said Friday in a statement.

DEFENDANTS’ EMERGENCY EXPEDITED MOTION TO STAY THE COURT’S

FEBRUARY 16, 2015 ORDER PENDING APPEAL AND SUPPORTING

MEMORANDUM

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT

Defendants respectfully move for a stay, pending appeal, of the preliminary injunction entered in this case on February 16, 2015 [ECF No. 144], concerning the November 20, 2014, memorandum issued by the Secretary of Homeland Security (“Secretary”), setting forth guidelines for the consideration of deferred action for the parents of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents (“DAPA”) and modifying existing guidelines for the consideration of deferred action for certain individuals who came to the United States as children (“modified DACA”) (collectively, “Deferred Action Guidance” or “Guidance”). Defendants have filed a Notice of Appeal [ECF No. 149] from the Court’s February 16, 2015 Opinion and Orders granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction [ECF Nos. 144 & 145].

A stay pending appeal is necessary to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS” or “Department”) is able to most effectively protect national security, public safety, and the integrity of the border. Specifically, the Deferred Action Guidance enjoined by this Court is an integral part of the Department’s comprehensive effort to set and effectuate immigration enforcement priorities that focus on the removal of threats to public safety, national security risks, and recent border crossers, thereby best securing the Homeland in the face of limited resources.

Absent a stay, DHS will sustain irreparable harm—harm that would not be cured, even if Defendants ultimately prevail on that appeal. Allowing the preliminary injunction to remain in place pending appeal would also harm the interests of the public and of third parties, who will be deprived of the significant law enforcement and humanitarian benefits of prompt implementation of the Guidance. When these harms are weighed against the financial injuries claimed by Plaintiffs (and found by the Court only as to Texas), the balance of hardships tips Case 1:14-cv-00254 Document 150 Filed in TXSD on 02/23/15 Page 5 of 24 decidedly in favor of a stay; the harms claimed by Plaintiffs are not imminent and are fully within their power to avoid.

A stay is also warranted in view of Defendant’s substantial case that the preliminary injunction was issued in error—all that Defendants must establish concerning a likelihood of success in order to warrant the requested stay. Defendants’ case is substantial indeed: the Court lacked authority to issue the preliminary injunction, both because Plaintiffs lack standing and because the Deferred Action Guidance is an exercise of prosecutorial discretion by the Secretary that is neither subject to challenge by the States, nor required to be issued through notice-and comment rulemaking. That the Court’s reasoning on standing and the merits has been rejected by other district courts further underscores the fact that Defendants have a substantial case on appeal.

Read the entire Federal appeal here that was filed today.

DHS was to begin accepting requests for modified DACA on February 18, 2015. On February 16, 2015, the Court granted Plaintiffs’ Motion and preliminarily enjoined Defendants from “implementing any and all aspects or phases” of DAPA and modified DACA, as set forth in the Guidance. Order of Temporary Inj. (“Order”) at 1-2 [ECF No. 144]. The Court found that “at least” Texas has standing to sue, stating that Texas would be required under the existing terms of state law to expend funds to provide driver’s licenses to individuals who receive DAPA and modified DACA at some point in the future. Mem. Op. & Order (“Op.”) at 22-36 [ECF No. 145].

Pssst, You ARE a Customer of This Bank

“If the Desert Sunlight solar firm is the ‘beginnings of a renewable energy future,’ then the future doesn’t look bright for taxpayers, ratepayers and all Americans who think mega-corporations should make a living by selling their products, not by selling a bill of goods,” The Heritage Foundation’s Mitchell Tu and David Kreutzer wrote for The Daily Signal.

In addition to benefiting from the Department of Energy’s now-defunct 1705 loan program, two of the four firms involved also are significant beneficiaries of funding provided by the Export-Import Bank: General Electric and First Solar.

The Export-Import Bank provides taxpayer-backed loans and loan guarantees to foreign countries and companies for the purchase of U.S. goods. The bank’s charter is set to expire June 30, and lawmakers on Capitol Hill are beginning to wade into the debate over whether it’s life should be extended.

Pulling back the curtain and going deeper…..

Communist Regime-financing Ex-Im Bank Fights for Survival

The U.S. taxpayer-backed Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), widely criticized for crony capitalism as well as for financing communist and socialist regimes with American money, is fighting for its very survival amid scandals as a growing coalition of lawmakers in Congress works to finally shut it down. From funneling billions in “loans” to state-owned banks in Russia and Communist China, to offering the corrupt Brazilian state-owned oil giant Petrobras $2 billion to “develop oil fields,” to hiring politically connected “green energy” cronies, the bank’s activities have come under increasing criticism on Capitol Hill. Now, with its charter set to expire this summer without congressional action, the Ex-Im Bank — originally created to subsidize U.S. exports to the mass-murdering regime ruling the Soviet Union — is sparring with the American people’s elected representatives over its fate.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, key figures in the establishment wing of the GOP, often dubbed “RINOs” for being alleged “Republicans In Name Only,” are pushing for the re-authorizing the Ex-Im Bank’s charter. Corporate welfare-loving Democrats, too, despite being in the minority in both chambers of Congress, are working to keep the controversial bank alive. Even the most extreme self-styled “progressives,” such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose specialty is attacking business and markets in the quest for ever bigger and more oppressive government, want to re-authorize Ex-Im. Meanwhile, Big Business lobbyists with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other special-interest outfits are right now twisting arms on Capitol Hill and plotting strategies to keep the taxpayer-backed Ex-Im cash flowing to their members.

Establishment Republicans anxious to please powerful special interests have proposed “reforming” the bank in an effort to make saving it more palatable to the public. Among them is Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.), who introduced a bill with more than 50 GOP co-sponsors, so far, to “reform” the bank while re-authorizing its charter until 2019. Last week, a coalition of Big Government-loving Democrats led by ultra-leftist Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) tried to force the House Financial Services Committee to at least consider renewing Ex-Im’s charter, but conservatives on the panel voted down their amendment. Even Obama, who accurately described the bank as “little more than a fund for corporate welfare” while on the campaign trail in 2008, is now working hard to browbeat Congress into re-authorizing the Ex-Im Bank.

“Bipartisan support for corporate welfare and a corporatism state provides compelling evidence that in the end, it is money and power — not ideology — that drives the DC insider establishment,” wrote Tom Borelli, a senior fellow with the pro-market group FreedomWorks. “Instead of drawing a clear policy distinction over corporatism and making the Democrats own the label of ‘the party of big business and special interests,’ Republican backers of the Ex-Im Bank are blurring the lines between the parties and tarnishing the GOP’s brand.” He said that unless conservative activists express strong opposition to re-authorizing the crony-capitalist bank, conservative members of the House of Representatives would likely be “overwhelmed” by Democrats and “ideologically bankrupt Republicans.”

Supporters of the Ex-Im Bank point out that its taxpayer-backed loan programs are contingent on the foreign entities involved purchasing U.S.-sourced goods and services. As such, the controversial bank likes to argue that it helps “support American jobs” and promote exports. Numerous other national governments also have similar institutions that subsidize some companies or government-owned “enterprises,” so the Ex-Im claims that it, too, must subsidize certain U.S. firms and foreign entities. Another argument often cited by the Ex-Im Bank and its supporters — primarily Big Business — is that rather than costing taxpayers money, it sometimes earns some revenue for the Treasury. Even this may be misleading, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office forecasting that U.S. taxpayers will bear some $2 billion in Ex-Im losses over the next decade. Plus, there is always the prospect that enough bad loans from the bank could end up putting U.S. taxpayers on the hook for many more billions of dollars.

The federal bank also harms a wide array of Americans, experts say. “Ex-Im places the 99.96 percent of U.S. small businesses that it doesn’t subsidize at a competitive disadvantage because the subsidies artificially lower costs for privileged competitors,” explained Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow with the market-oriented Mercatus Center at George Mason University. “Sadly, the privileges Ex-Im extends to the few come at the expense of countless American firms and their workers. Unsubsidized firms may see reduced revenues — and their employees may see their hours cut, their salaries stagnate, or their jobs simply vanish because their employers cannot compete on the uneven playing field created by the federal government….It is time for Congress to start cleaning up its house and agree to end programs that need to go away. Enough with the pretense of reform.”

Critics have also rallied against the bank in recent years citing a wide array of other arguments. For one, and perhaps most importantly, there is no authority in the U.S. Constitution for the federal government to create a taxpayer-backed bank that picks winners and losers by loaning money to foreign governments, banks, and companies. Secondly, if participants in the free-market do not consider loans to be wise enough to put private funds behind them, critics of the Ex-Im Bank say the federal government has no business putting taxpayers’ money on the line instead. And while it may be true that some businesses and jobs benefit from Ex-Im schemes, many others suffer as a result. Countless examples have been cited by experts.

Even putting those problems aside, another major concern surrounding Ex-Im Bank is its long history of subsidizing ruthless communist regimes — a sordid pattern that continues to this day. In fact, the bank was originally established in 1934 specifically to finance exports to the Soviet Union. Why would a U.S. taxpayer-backed bank be needed to finance exports to Moscow’s regime? Because anyone with any sense in the private sector knew better than to trust the collection of gangsters, mass-murderers, megalomaniacs, and cut-throats in Moscow enslaving the Russian people while trying to mooch off of Americans to pay for it. Numerous other brutal regimes also received Ex-Im financing under a variety of pretexts.

Despite the growing uproar, the Ex-Im Bank’s financing for brutal regimes that analyst say represent major national security concerns to the United States continues unabated. Between 1997 and 2013, for example, the bank provided almost $2 billion in loans and long-term guarantees just to banks in Communist China and Russia, CNSNews.com reported, citing Ex-Im’s annual reports. Among the recipients: Bank of China, the Russian Agricultural Bank, China’s State Development Bank, Gazprombank, and many more. Of course, despite claims to be shifting toward what they call “state capitalism,” the banking “industries” in both Russia and Communist China remain entirely dominated and largely owned by the respective regimes.

“I don’t think Ex-Im subsidies to Chinese and Russian banks or State-Owned Enterprises constitute good uses of taxpayer resources,” Dan Ikenson, the director of the Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, told CNSNews.com. “But, believe it or not, Ex-Im does partner with foreign export credit agencies to fund export sales and infrastructure projects even though the primary rationalization for having Ex-Im in the first place is to counteract the advantages provided to foreign businesses by those export credit agencies. It’s a complete sham.” In a report about Ex-Im’s victims, Ikenson also noted that the bank causes “substantial” “collateral damage” to many American companies.

More recently, the Ex-Im Bank offered $2 billion to Petrobras, an oil conglomerate owned primarily by the corruption-plagued, Marxist-Leninist-dominated Brazilian government, currently headed by former communist terrorist and close Castro ally Dilma Rousseff. A series of scandals in recent years surrounding the state-owned giant, which has also counted billionaire Obama ally George Soros among its investors, revealed that Petrobras was being used by Rousseff’s extremist “Workers’ Party” to bribe politicians and help finance more socialist scheming in Brazil and Latin America. Aside from the national security concerns, U.S. lawmakers lambasted Ex-Im for funding Brazilian government oil exploration even while the Obama administration was working to shut down as much American energy production as possible and destroy Petrobras’ U.S. competitors.

A growing chorus of critics from across the political spectrum is calling on Congress to finally let the Ex-Im Bank’s charter expire as a first step to reining in cronyism, corruption, market distortions, and the financing of hostile foreign governments with U.S. taxpayer money. However, despite the mass opposition, unless the American people speak out loudly and clearly against Ex-Im and corporate welfare, analysts say the alliance of politicians in the pockets of Big Business and Big Government may yet succeed in re-authorizing the taxpayer-backed boondoggle.

_______

Detail about this bank: The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) is the official export credit agency of the United States federal government.[1] It was established in 1934 by an executive order, and made an independent agency in the Executive branch by Congress in 1945, for the purposes of financing and insuring foreign purchases of United States goods for customers unable or unwilling to accept credit risk. The mission of the Bank is to create and sustain U.S. jobs by financing sales of U.S. exports to international buyers. The Bank is chartered as a government corporation by the Congress of the United States; it was last chartered for a three-year term in 2012 and extended in September 2014 through June 30th, 2015.[2] [3] Its Charter spells out the Bank’s authorities and limitations. Among them is the principle that Ex-Im Bank does not compete with private sector lenders, but rather provides financing for transactions that would otherwise not take place because commercial lenders are either unable or unwilling to accept the political or commercial risks inherent in the deal. Its current chairman and president is Fred P. Hochberg.